The Exorcist: A Marriage of Spirit and Matter in the Style of William Peter Blatty

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

William Peter Blatty, the author of The Exorcist, has an eccentric style that is marked by his tendency to create similes and metaphors that unite concrete and abstract terms. This practice is so commonplace in his novel as to indicate that it is more than merely a technique; it is essential to his narrative voice and, therefore, part of both his novel’s point of view and its theme.

 
In just the prologue to his novel, he includes the following tropes, each of which combines the physical and the spiritual, the literal and the figurative, the concrete and the abstract:

• a “premonition clung to his [Father Merrin’s] back like chill wet leaves” (3);
• “[the] tell had been sifted, stratum by stratum, its entrails examined, tagged and shipped” (3);
•  “he dusted the thought like a clay-fresh find but could not tag it” 4);
• “slippers, [the] groaning backs [of which] pressed under his heels” (4);
• “shoes caked thick with debris of the pain of living” (4);
• “The Kurd stood waiting like an ancient debt” (4);
• “a splintered table the color of sadness” (5);
• “he waited, feeling at the stillness” (5);
• “the fractured rooftops of Erbil hovered far in the distance, poised in the clouds like a rubbled, mud-stained benediction” (5);
• “it [“safety” and “a sense of protection and deep well-being”] dwindled in the distance with the fast-moving jeep” (5);
• “some dry, tagged whisper of the past” (5-6);
• “its dominion was sickness and disease” (6); “the bloody dust of its predestination” (7-8);
• “icy conviction” (8). 
  

What, one may ask, does Blatty gain, as an artist, by mixing the sensual and the ideal, the real and the intangible, the concrete and the abstract? The author himself offers a clue, in his novel’s prologue:

The man in khaki shook his head, staring down at the laceless, crusted snows caked thick with debris of the pain of living. The stuff of the cosmos, he softly reflected: matter; yet somehow finally spirit. Spirit and the shoes were to him but aspects of a stuff more fundamental, a stuff that was primal and totally other (4).

This paragraph suggests that Father Merrin does not view reality in dualistic terms, as consisting of matter and of spirit, both of which are real. Rather, he is a monist, someone who believes that reality consists of only one essential element, although this element can appear to have two distinct expressions, that of matter and that of spirit. Truly understood, however, each is a mere shadow, as it were, of the one, true “stuff,” which is “more fundamental” and “totally other,” which is, in religious terms, God. According to Father Merrin's faith as a Catholic, God is omnipresent, or everywhere present at once; therefore, the Spirit of God penetrates, if it does not actually embody, all things, shoes and “spirit” alike. If matter and spirit, like matter and energy, are interchangeable with one another, the body which housed a human soul in the distant past may now be mere bones, an artifact among other artifacts, as Blatty’s inclusion of human bones in his catalogue of other relics at the outset of the novel’s prologue indicates:

The dig was over. The tell had been sifted, stratum by stratum, its entrails examined, tagged and shipped: the beads and pendants; glyptics and phalli; ground-stone mortars stained with ocher; burnished pots. Nothing exceptional. An Assyrian ivory toilet box. And man. The bones of man. The brittle remnants of cosmic torment that had once made him wonder if matter was Lucifer upward-groping back to his God. And yet now he knew better. . . (3-4).

The “he” in the final sentence of this paragraph might seem ambiguous: does it refer to Father Merrin or to humanity? Is it an individual or a universal perspective, the understanding that human skeletal remains do not signify a Luciferian “upward-groping back to. . . God?” The ambiguity is resolved almost as soon as it arises, if it does, in fact, arise at all, by the context of the paragraph in which the personal pronoun appears, for the paragraph speaks not of the priest, but of humanity: “he,” therefore, refers to “man,” not to Father Merrin, whose own point of view is very different, as one may already have discerned, than the worldview implied by metaphysical dualism, which sees both matter and spirit as opposite, if not opposing, realities, whereas Father Merrin sees them as both but “aspects of a stuff more fundamental, a stuff that was primal and totally other,” or as expressions or, perhaps, indications, of a transcendent divinity.
 
Blatty’s mixing of the concrete and the abstract also has the effect of making the latter seem more substantial, even more sensual, than it might be if it were linked, in simile or metaphor, to other abstract, rather than with concrete, terms. A “premonition” that clings to one’s “back like chill wet leaves” can be felt: it is thick and wet, clammy and cold; a “tell” that has “entrails” is a living thing—or, perhaps, a once-living thing, murdered by the archaeologists as much as by time, in order that it might be dissected, and its ancient artifacts, including the “bones” of “man” examined and catalogued; “stillness” that can be felt is tangible, indeed.
 
By mixing the concrete and the abstract, Blatty breathes life, as it were, into dry and withered concepts and sensations, giving them the “flesh” of sensual qualities that can be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and touched; at the same time, his marriage of matter and spirit suggests the monistic metaphysics that Father Merrin believes expresses the reality of a wholly “other” God who transcends both and yet, paradoxically, somehow also brings the two “aspects” of reality and, indeed, of divinity, together in himself, just as, in the same cosmic sense, Jesus Christ brings matter—the flesh—and spirit together as the incarnation of God.
 
It is the notion that God is not physical or spiritual, but other, that Father Karras has not yet understood. Therefore, for him, the physical and the fleshly aspects of human existence are grotesque and offensive, as is seen in Father Karras’s reaction to a homeless man, whom he sees as vile. Karras has come, of late, to doubt his faith, partly because of the concrete embodiment of sin in human flesh and partly because of the reality of evil, which is also often associated with the physical and corporeal aspects of existence. The priest sees the decadence of sin in the person of a homeless man who pleads with him for alms:

. . . He could not bear to search for Christ again in stench and hollow eyes; for the Christ of pus and bleeding excrement, the Christ who could not be. . . (51).

Father Karras seems to equate human existence, or its fleshly aspect, at least, with evil:

A harried man with many appointments, the Provincial had not pressed him for the reasons for his doubt. For which Karras was grateful. He knew that his answers would have sounded insane: The need to rend food with the teeth and then defecate. . . . Stinking socks. Thalidomide babies. An item in a paper about a young altar boy waiting at a bus stop: set on by strangers; sprayed with kerosene; ignited. . . (54).

He has not yet attained the revelation that Father Merrin has experienced. Once, like Father Karras, the older, in some ways worldlier, Father Merrin found it difficult to love his neighbor as himself and to see in the human face and form the image and likeness of God; he has since overcome this stumbling block to faith, just as he has come to understand that evil is an offense to the goodness of God, not a quality inherent in mere matter or fleshly existence:

. . . The old man in khaki looked up into eyes that were damply bleached as if the membrane of an eggshell had been pasted over the irises. Glaucoma. Once he could not have loved this man (3).

Indeed, it might be argued that Father Merrin has come to love the downtrodden and the oppressed because of their suffering, because of the evil in the world. Unlike Father Karras, who believes that demons are merely personifications of various evils, Father Merrin knows that the “Legion” of demons that claim to haunt Regan MacNeil are lying, that “there is only one,” the enemy of God, for Father Merrin has encountered—indeed, has fought—him before, in the guise of the demon Pazuzu, and knows that the true identity of the demon represented by the idol with the “ragged wings; taloned feet; bulbous, jutting, stubby penis and a mouth stretched taut in feral grin” is none other than Satan himself, the source and living embodiment of evil.
 
Father Karras is a materialist—or is in danger of becoming one. As such, he is obsessed with the physical, the fleshly, disease, and death; he is close to believing that only matter is real; and he has come to believe that evil is explainable in natural terms, as the effects of organic malformations of the brain or other physiological abnormalities.
 
Father Merrin, as a monist, accepts both the material, including the fleshly, and the spiritual as real, believing them to be but two aspects of a higher, unknowable “stuff” that is “totally other” than either of them and that evil is essentially nothing more than an offense to God. He is able to love Regan, despite the horrific onslaught of the demon—or the devil—who assaults her from within, often by the vilest and most corporeal means available to him—Regan’s own body.
 
Father Karras, on the other hand, is reluctant to seek “Christ again in stench and hollow eyes; for the Christ of pus and bleeding excrement.” It is only after he understands that God is beyond good and evil but is himself the essence of love that Father Karras can love Regan, in all her humanity, the way that Father Merrin has come to love human beings, whether a Kurd or the daughter of an actress who is temporarily residing in Georgetown. It is then that Father Karras can be the exorcist he has been called upon to be and can deliver the child whose body has been both a source of demonic violation of a temple of the Holy Spirit and a stumbling block to his own faith.
 
By mixing the concrete with the abstract in the peculiar similes and metaphors that appear frequently throughout his novel, Blatty brings together the material and the spiritual, making the former seem as tangible as the latter and suggesting one of his novel’s themes, which is that both aspects of reality find resolution, if not synthesis, in a higher, “totally other” form of being.

Source of quotations: Blatty, William Peter. The Exorcist. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. Print.

What's So Monstrous About Monsters?

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

What makes a creature monstrous?

That's a question with which artists and writers) have contended for centuries. As a result, there are quite a few visions, visual and literary, of the monstrous. In this post, we'll consider a few examples of the former, as we examine a few ancient, medieval, and modern examples of monsters, as artists have envisioned them.

Since ancient times, the unknown has been one source of the idea of the monstrous. Many of these monsters, the likenesses of which are passed down to us in pictures, sculptures, and poetry, from ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, and elsewhere, are hybrids, mixing characteristics of both human beings and the so-called lower animals. Included among these creatures are such monsters as centaurs, hermaphrodites, lamia, minotaurs, and sirens, to mention but a few.

Other monsters are of gigantic scale, are missing an organ, an appendage, or another feature: the cyclops is a prime example, both of a gargantuan figure and of one who is missing an organ, having, as he or she does, only one eye. Another well-known specimen is the monopod, which was also known as the sciapod, skiapod, or skiapode, who appear in Aristophanes's The Birds (414 BC), in Pliny the Elder's Natural History (79), and St. Augustine's City of God (426).

In a few monsters, traits or organs were multiplied. Cerberus had three heads; hydra, many.

Often, ancient monsters inhabited remote places. The fact that they lived far away made an encounter with one of them unlikely, because long-distance travel was rare for ordinary people, except, in some cases, soldiers. For the same reason, oceans were often represented the homes of mysterious creatures, many of whom were of gigantic size and strange appearance. Examples include the the biblical Behemoth, the Norse Midgard Serpent, and Scylla and Charybdis.

Our brief survey of ancient monsters suggests many often exhibit these one or more of these characteristics:

• Mix human and animal characteristics
• Are gigantic in size
• Are missing one or more organs or traits
• Have one or more extra organs or traits
• Reside in distant locations

In Judaism and, later, in Christianity, monsters were no longer simply natural phenomena; they were created by God, for divine purposes. For example, hermaphrodites were tokens of his wrath; their births were warnings of God's fury concerning the conduct of particular communities and of the divine punishment that would occur if such behavior continued. Likewise, the gods of earlier religions were subsumed by Christianity, pagan deities becoming demons in Christian theology.

Throughout the Middle Ages, many monsters were drawn from the same sources: ancient and Christian accounts of these fascinating, terrible creatures, although, now, all familiar monsters were interpreted from the Christian perspective, with pagan monsters assuming demonic significance.

New additions to the ranks of the monstrous came from travels abroad or from pagan European tribes, before their conversions to the Christian faith. Of course, Christianity also supplied several monsters of its own, most significantly, Satan and the Antichrist.

Once Christianity became the religion of most, if not all, of the Western world, it united peoples from various tribes and cultures, becoming the unum round which e pluribus found its center. As polytheism gave way to monotheism and pagan faiths were replaced by one catholic, or universal faith (at least as the Western world is concerned), ideas about the nature of the monstrous changed, even as they merged under the authority and direction of Christian belief, authority, doctrine, and practice. Satan, demons, witches and sorcerers, heretics, and others who became victims of the Inquisition were the new monsters, common to all.

In modern times, the monstrous, as a concept, has taken on psychological significance, as the demons of hell become inner, or personal, demons, which is to say, personifications of individual human beings' unbridled impulses and animal instincts: aggression, lust, and the like. Especially in the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, the monstrous becomes primarily psychological, rather than cultural or theological per se. Alongside ancient and medieval monsters, we now have the narrator-protagonist of “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the vengeance-minded jester of “Hop-Frog,” and the obsessive-compulsive protagonist of “Berenice.”

Monsters are of only two origins: natural or supernatural. (“Paranormal” is merely a term designating natural phenomena which are, as yet, scientifically inexplicable, and psychological monsters, like extraterrestrial monstrosities, are of natural origin.)

But what makes monsters monstrous?

There are a number of theories. Some say monsters are monstrous because they represent actual, existential threats. The werewolf, for example, symbolizes the beast within the human; the madman a person whose behavior is unrestrained by reason. Such monsters are the bane of the rationalist's existence (and aren't we all, at least occasionally, rationalists?) They suggest the Enlightenment, though it undoubtedly happened, might have occurred in vain.

Others contend that monsters are monstrous because they suggest the threat of the unknown and, perhaps, the unfathomable. According to this view, monsters are only monstrous as long as they origin or nature remains unknown. Once the nature of the creature in Ambrose Bierce's “The Damned Thing” is understood (it is of a color outside the range of human perception and, therefore, invisible), it is no longer monstrous (although it remains both terrible and dangerous). Such monsters are epistemological threats or, at least, insecurities. If knowledge is power, ignorance is impotence (and, often, impotence is helplessness).

Monsters who occupy a rung higher in The Great Chain of Being than our own rung on the celestial ladder are theological threats. God defeated Satan, casting him and his followers out of heaven, but, even if we are created in God's image, we don't have his omnipotence; our fight with the devil or with demons, as both The Exorcist and The Exorcism of Emily Rose show us, is not an even match, nor is it one that we, by ourselves, without divine aid, are able to win.

Christianity, it seems, is in abeyance; its influence over the multitudes of the western world appears to have diminished. As a result, paganism has resurfaced, and with it, the old monsters are, once again, venturing out of the darkness to which they were banished by reason and faith, as the current popularity of vampires, witches, demons, and other such ancient monsters attests. Side by side with them, though, the monsters of Christian faith continue to exist. The psychological monster, the madman, in his (or her) various guises, including those of the serial killer (Ben Willis, of I Know What You Did Last Summer), the sadistic sociopath (Jigsaw, of the Saw franchise), the psychotic murderer (Norman Bates, of Psycho), the mad scientist (Dr. Moreau, of The Island of Dr. Moreau), and the overzealous fan (Annie Wilkes, of Misery) has, more recently, joined them.

What monsters might the future spawn? What fears will they embody? What means shall overcome them? These, alas, are questions only time will answer, if they turn out to be answerable at all.

Horror Fiction: The Appeal of the Need for Prominence

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

According to communications professor Jib Fowles, we all need to feel “admired and respected, to enjoy prestige and high social status.” Such a need is represented by “distinction” and by being of high social rank. Although prominence may not include wealth, a prominent person is apt to be perceived as “classy.” In short, to be prominent is to stand out from the crowd.

In horror fiction, which characters stand out and why?

The heroes of horror stories seldom come readily to mind, but the villains are memorable:

Movie or Novel	Villain	Hero
A Nightmare on Elm Street (movie)	Freddy Krueger	Nancy Thompson
Desperation (novel)	Tak	David Carver
Frankenstein (novel)	Monster	Dr. Victor Frankenstein
Halloween (movie)	Michael Myers	Laurie Strode
Paradise Lost (poem)	Satan	God
Psycho (movie)	Norman Bates	Lila Crane and Sam Loomis
The Silence of the Lambs (movie)	Hannibal Lecter	Clarice Starling

Horror stories belong to the villains, even though they are often overcome by the hero or heroes at the end of the novel or movie in which they are featured. The villains make things happen; the heroes, until the end (and sometimes even then) mostly react. This observation applies to literature as old as John Milton's Paradise Lost, for which, both William Blake and Percy Bysshe Shelley contend, Satan is the true hero of the epic, a point of view I address in my urban fantasy novel, A Whole World Full of Hurt. The protagonist, Raven Westbrook, a turncoat witch, is discussing God's seeming indifference to the evils she and her rescuer, government agent Lloyd Edwards:

“One of the things I remember about reading the poem . . . is that the accepted criticism of the day regarded Satan as the true hero of the poem. He was made unforgettable, these critic claimed, while God was given such short shrift that he was, at best, a marginal character.”

“That's the way it seems today, too, sometimes. God keeps a low profile.”

“I said God seemed all the more impressive to me because he didn't appear directly in the epic. Readers heard allusions of God, in the dialogue of other, lesser characters, but God himself, as you put it, seemed to keep a low profile, as if he himself needn't deign to confront the evil that Satan represented.”

Raven considered his words. “Wow. I get that. What did the professor say?”

Lloyd chuckled. “I don't think he knew what to say, really. He didn't expect any thinking outside the box of received criticism. He admitted the possibility of such a point of view and, without endorsing it, moved on to the next point.”

Why do horror villains typically stand out more than the heroes who defeat them? One reason seems to be that they represent behavior, or even a way of life, that, fortunately, is alien to most of us. As a rule, we don't; stalk and kill young people who are sexually active; we cannot possess other people; we don't create monsters in scientific laboratories; we're not out to kill our sisters; we don't challenge the rule of God; we don't mount and stuff our dead mothers or kill in their names; we're not so wise to the ways of the criminal mind that we can instruct FBI agents as to how to hunt serial killers. Characters who can and do accomplish such diabolical feats are fascinating to us.

On a deeper level, characters the likes of Freddy Kruger, Tak, Frankenstein's monster, Michael Myers, Satan, Norman Bates, and Hannibal Lecter allow us, vicariously, to see life through their eyes, to become them, in our imaginations, for a time, doing what they do. Except for sociopaths, readers and moviegoers have the capacities to empathize and sympathize, to walk a mile in another person's shoes, to get inside someone else's head, to identify with even the most vile and disgusting, heartless, cruel, and evil villains without, we hope, becoming them ourselves, although Friedrich Nietzsche, suggested we may endanger ourselves by such actions: “when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”

Memorable villains are Evil, with a capital “E.” There is nothing, or very little, they will not do in the interests of obtaining their own goals, whether they seek another victim, victory of God, the creation of life itself, or escape from themselves through their adoption of another personality. Because of the magnitude of their evil, as it is represented in the horrible deeds they commit, they stand out.

Finally, there is at least one other reason that such characters attain prominence: their hubris, or excessive pride, the extreme arrogance which results from their unwarranted self-regard and the self-egoistic centering of the universe upon themselves. All that matters to them are their own desires. They who are merely men (or, far less often, women) would be gods. This is the basic motivation of all bigger-than-life villains. It is the sin of Adam and Eve. As Satan tells the first couple, concerning God's prohibition of their eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, God had but the fruit of the tree off limits because “God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). It is the sin that leads to Lucifer's downfall:

For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:/ I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High./ Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit (Isaiah 14:14-16).

It is the sin, too, of Freddy Kruger, Tak, Frankenstein's monster, Michael Myers, Satan, Norman Bates, Hannibal Lecter, and the other prominent villains of horror fiction. It may also the sin of such actual villains as Ed Gein, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Ghadafi, and other serial killers and dictators. Herein lies the true horror and terror of the most prominent villains, both of fiction and of history.

The Horror Writer's Muse: A Cautionary Tale

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

Shadows crawl across my wall,
Dark remnants of Eden’s fall,
Due to Adam’s sin; again,
My brain reels in garish pain;
I rise, eyes fixed on nothing,
Put pen to paper to sing,
In poetry, my memory
Of primordial, eerie
Things, which, both fanged and clawed,
Squirm and writhe upon my wall. . . .

Our ancestors, daughters of men
And sons of angels fallen,
Produce monsters such as Grendel,
Brute minions, all, of deepest hell;
Some beauteous of face and form,
Others of aspect like the worm,
And others still of shadowy
Appearance, but strange and eerie,
Whose task is mine to give full voice,
Not that vile Satan may rejoice,
But that all the sons and daughters
Of ancient Cain who do yet stir
May be heard--and thus evaded--
By the living who are not dead
To the antediluvian
Origins of death and sin,
Mystery of iniquity
That, like a spider on a wall,
Crawls across us, one and all,
Leaving, in its wake, gossamer
Threads of desire, dark and deep,
Our hearts and souls to keep.

“Out, out, damned spot!” the Lady said,
Unaware that she was dead;
Shadow, spider, and spot alike
Are but mute brutes whose terrors strike
From within, their banshee’s voice
An echo of an ancient choice
As much our own as our heartbeat,
From which there is no retreat
But to return, a prodigal
Son, who once was hell’s spawn and thrall,
A shadow writhing on a wall,
As are, or once were, each and all.

(The next time you see a shadow,
Ask not, as Plato did, to see
Its form, for that which slithers forth
from Below had an evil birth,
taking shape from iniquity!)

Theme as the Springboard to a Story's Plot

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

Dorothy Gale discovers she's not in Kansas anymore

I usually start my stories with an inciting moment, the point in the action that launches the rest of the narrative forward. (In The Wizard of Oz, the film version of L. Frank Baum’s novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, for example, the story begins when the protagonist, Dorothy Gale, runs away from home, because, had she not done so, she’d have been with Aunt Em, Uncle Henry, and the farmhands in the storm cellar and would have avoided the cyclone that carried her off to her adventures in faraway Oz.)

A story’s inciting moment can be virtually anything. I once had a list of a couple hundred potential inciting moments. A few on this list might have been:

• The protagonist receives a strange package.
• The protagonist makes a spontaneous (and, as it turns out, a poor) decision.
• The protagonist is abducted by strangers.
• The protagonist buys his girlfriend a present different than the one he’d intended to buy for her birthday.
• The protagonist awakens in a strange place, not knowing how he or she got there.

In a previous post, I explain how Edgar Allan Poe wrote his famous narrative poem The Raven backward, by first determining the effect that he wanted to produce (horror) and then determining the details, of plot, tone, setting, and so forth, that would best help him to produce this predetermined effect. This morning, in the wee hours, as I lay half-asleep and half--awake, which is usually when the muse puts in her appearances--I hit upon another way to accomplish this same feat: One can write backward, so to speak, by first determining how the main character will change by the end of the story!

The change doesn’t have to be drastic, although it should be significant. The change may involve in alteration in the protagonist’s aspirations, attitude, beliefs, decisions, emotions, perceptions, reasoning, thoughts, understanding, or values. Whatever type of change occurs, however, it will derive from the experiences that he or she undergoes during the course of the story, and his or her change will constitute a lesson of sorts for him or her. In fact, I often think of the theme of a story as the lesson that the main character learns as a result of his or her experiences.

Looked at backward, so to speak, the story’s theme (the lesson learned, as reflected in the protagonist’s change of behavior) can be the springboard for the narrative’s entire action, a kind of inciting moment in reverse, as it were. In other words, by determining beforehand how the main character will change, a writer can then plot the story’s action in reverse, determining what will make him or her change and what lesson he or she will learn as the result of the experiences that he or she thus undergoes.

Job, in better days

Let’s take the Biblical story of Job (a horror story, if ever there was one) as an example. At the end of the story, Job’s understanding of God increases: Before the story, Job has a simple idea of God as One who rewards good behavior and punishes bad behavior; by the conclusion of the narrative, Job learns that God’s will is inscrutable, or unknowable, and that He must be trusted despite human beings’ ignorance of His ultimate character, or, as Job phrases his newfound knowledge (the story’s theme), “The just shall live by faith.”

Job has not learned the lesson that bad things sometime happen to good people and not just to the bad guys. Therefore, he is puzzled when things go from good to bad for him, and his faith (trust) in God is severely tested. By knowing in advance that Job’s understanding of the nature of God is what will change as he learns his lesson (“The just shall live by faith”), the writer would be able to select the incidents of the plot, including those of the exposition (God points out Job’s faithfulness to Satan during an assembly of the heavenly host which the devil also attends); the inciting moment (Satan is allowed to test Job’s faith); the rising action (the increasingly horrific torments that Job must endure during the testing of his faith); the turning point (Job’s refusal both to curse God and to himself accept blame for the catastrophes that befall his fortune, his family, and himself); the falling action (God’s interrogation of Job out of the whirlwind); and the denouement (Job’s confession of both his ignorance of, and his faith in, God and God’s restoration of Job’s fortune, Job’s family, and Job himself).

By plotting backward, so to speak, from the story’s theme and using it as a sort of reverse inciting moment, the narrative’s sequence of action, including the elements of its plot, can be determined in such a way that this sequence of action will result in the protagonist’s change of behavior and the learning of his or her lesson. In addition, this approach allows the writer to connect plot to character much more closely, perhaps, than he or she might have been able to do had his or her story begun not with the final outcome (the theme of the story, which accompanies or leads to the protagonist’s change in behavior), but with a simple change in the routine of the protagonist’s normal, everyday life. Moreover, this approach helps the writer to ensure that everything that happens in the story is related to the character’s development and change and to his or her recognition of a new truth (the lesson that he or she learns).

Connie's Plight

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Professor Joyce Carol Oates

In Joyce Carol Oates’ short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have you Been?” (1966), the teenage protagonist Connie meets antagonist Arnold Friend, who is, according to some critics, Satan (or perhaps a satyr) in disguise; an imaginary embodiment of Connie’s own confused notions of men and romance; or an actual killer.

The answer to the story’s first question is, most likely, to be raped and murdered. The question is obviously related to the second question, “Where have you been?” For many critics, the answer to this second question is, in a sense, nowhere. Connie’s mother is vain and superficial, and her father is disinterested in the matters of the family whom he helped to create. Neither parent has done any parenting; consequently, their teenage daughter has no moral basis upon which to base her own conduct and she is easy prey for Arnold and his accomplice, Ellie Oscar (in real life, John Saunders). Connie’s view of life, informed by the events, interests, artifacts, and pursuits of popular culture, is insufficient to sustain her in the crisis she encounters in the person of her adversary. She is as much a victim of her parents and the superficial society in which they live as she is of Friend.

Short Fiction: A Critical Companion by Robert C. Evans, Anne C. Little, and Barbara Wiedemann (Locust Hill Press, West Cornwall, CT, 1997) provides excerpts of critical texts that summarize much of the more important criticism concerning “Where Are You Going, Where Have you Been?” and other short stories.

According to one of the critics whose views are included in this volume, despite its seemingly supernatural elements, the story should not be read as allegorical because it is based upon the actual rape and murder of a teenage girl, Alleen Rowe, by serial killer Charles Schmid. Connie is Rowe’s fictional equivalent, just as Friend is a stand-in for Schmid. As A. R. Courtland points out in “Joyce Carol Oates’s ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’ As Pure Realism” (Studies in Short Fiction 26 [1989]: 505-010), Oates took many of the details of both Connie’s and Friend’s appearance and behavior from reports of the crime:

. . . [Like Connie,] Alleen Rowe was fifteen, had just washed her hair and was home alone. In addition, Schmid, although older, frequented teenage hangouts, was short though physically fit, dyed his hair, wore make-up, stuffed his boots, drove a gold car, and listened to rock music--all details that Oates incorporates into her story (173).

Moreover, the apparently supernatural elements of the story can be easily explained as natural incidents, Courtland argues:

His seemingly supernatural powers can be explained: his knowledge about Connie could easily have been acquired in her small town or even gathered through his own observations. Some of his statements are clever guesses (he mentions the type of food at the picnic, corn, and the activities of the guests, sitting and drinking) and other comments are wrong (he describes one guest as a fat lady, a statement that startles Connie, although she fills in a name and wonders why the woman is at the picnic (173).

Because the story is based upon actual, if fictionalized, events, to read it as fantastic is to do a disservice to the narrative, Courtland believes: “Reading the story as an allegory lessens its impact” (173).

Other critics disagree, arguing that an allegorical reading of the story enhances its values by adding verisimilitude to its plot. For example, Tom Quirk (“A Source for ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Studies in Short Fiction [1981]: 413:19) contends that “Oates’ fictionalizing of actual people and events does not detract from the impact of the story but rather heightens it, for the evil she depicts exists” (176).

Against the idea that Friend could not represent an embodiment of Satan, Joyce M. Wegs (“Don’t You Know Who I Am?” The Grotesque in Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?,” ed. Elaine Showalter, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994. Pp. 99-107) insists that “Friend is not just a murderer but also represents the devil. Connie, who has accepted the values of popular culture for her religion, mistakenly sees Friend as her savior.” Moreover, Wegs argues, some of Friend’s knowledge and behavior can just as well be attributed to supernatural as to natural powers, suggesting that he is a supernatural entity: “Friend, whose name suggests ‘fiend,’ appears to know all about Connie, cannot cross a threshold without being invited, places his sign on her, and wears boots to hide his cloven feet.” However, she also suggests that Friend is, in part, also a representation of “Connie’s sexual desires and fears.” As such, Wegs implies, Connie’s parents and the superficial culture that Americans tend to embrace are as much responsible for Friend’s existence as their daughter is responsible: “Connie cannot direct or control her actions, but the blame lies with her parents and a culture that gives her no moral guidance” (179).

Regarding the psychosocial origin and significance of Friend, Gretchen Schultz and R. J. R. Rockwood (“In Fairyland Without a Map: Connie’s Exploration Inward in Joyce Carol Oates’ ‘Where Are We Going, Where Have You Been?’” Literature and Psychology 30 [1980]: 155-67) agree, indicating that “the story represents Connie’s view of the world and Arnold Friend, the Schmid figure, exists in her mind. Connie, a confused adolescent, who creates the Arnold who matches her view of reality, is at ‘the boundary between childhood and adulthood,’ hesitant and yet anxious to enter the new world of experience which is opening before her.” Although Schultz and Rockwood do not seem to go along with Weg’s idea that Friend is also literally a fiend (he’s an inner demon, in their view), they do concur that his origin is at least in part due to an insufficient view of the world: “Unfortunately Connie does not have the needed help that would enable her to make this passage successfully. . . . Connie has received her messages from movies and songs, insufficient guides with their romantic and idealized themes” (177).

Although male readers tend to enjoy “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?,” Oates’ story appeals more to adolescent girls and young women, perhaps, who can better relate to her plight. Connie is socially awkward and seems to have low self-esteem. She also lacks autonomy and a developed sense of herself as a self, or person. Rather than thinking and feeling for herself, she relies upon cues from others as to how she should think and feel about situations. Her mother, a vain woman whose own looks have faded, is envious of her daughter’s beauty and, assuming that Connie is as vain about her own looks as she herself once was, scolds the teen whenever she sees Connie looking at her reflection in a mirror. This is how Oates introduces her protagonist:

Her name was Connie. She was fifteen and she had a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people's faces to make sure her own was all right. Her mother, who noticed everything and knew everything and who hadn't much reason any longer to look at her own face, always scolded Connie about it. "Stop gawking at yourself. Who are you? You think you're so pretty?" she would say.

Connie, as it turns out, is vain, as her mother suspects, perhaps for the same reason that her mother was once obsessed with her own appearance. Connie is astute at feminine psychology as it relates to the importance that society places on girls’ and women’s looks and, lacking self-esteem and confidence about herself as a person, she seeks to find a sense of self-worth in her appearance:

Connie would raise her eyebrows at these familiar old complaints and look right through her mother, into a shadowy vision of herself as she was right at that moment: she knew she was pretty and that was everything. Her mother had been pretty once too, if you could believe those old snapshots in the album, but now her looks were gone and that was why she was always after Connie.

It is her insecurity and her vanity, her dependence upon being considered beautiful by others, that makes Connie such easy prey to Friend’s compliments. However, she is also vulnerable because she feels unloved. Left home by her parents and sister June, who is “so plain and chunky and steady” that her mother is always unfavorably comparing Connie to her, Connie dreams of “a kind of love, the caresses of love, and her mind slipped over onto thoughts of the boy she had been with the night before and how nice he had been, how sweet it always was, not the way someone like June would suppose but sweet, gentle, the way it was in movies and promised in songs.”

Connie’s father is seldom home to provide her with an example of adult masculinity that would counter such adolescent notions of love, to provide needed discipline, or to protect his family from the likes of Friend: “Their father was away at work most of the time and when he came home he wanted supper and he read the newspaper at supper and after supper he went to bed. He didn't bother talking much to them.”

On some level, however, Connie does appear to know that her behavior would not always be approved or even accepted at home. As a result, Connie affects one manner of dress and a certain manner of conduct at home and another “away from home,” her hypocrisy partly defiance, partly a seeking after of her own identity, partly an affectation of sensuality intended to heighten and maintain her popularity among boys, and partly a result of her insecurities:

She wore a pull-over jersey blouse that looked one way when she was at home and another way when she was away from home. Everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home: her walk, which could be childlike and bobbing, or languid enough to make anyone think she was hearing music in her head; her mouth, which was pale and smirking most of the time, but bright and pink on these evenings out; her laugh, which was cynical and drawling at home—"Ha, ha, very funny,"—but highpitched [sic].

Connie is a complex, not a simple, character, yet she lives in a simple world that provides her with a simple--indeed, simplistic--view or life that is also dangerously superficial. Connie becomes the sort of girl the movies and magazines and songs suggest she should be; these media of popular culture are as much guides to how she should behave (and think and feel) as the “mirrors” into which she continually peers or the “other people's faces” she constantly checks “ to make sure her own was all right.” In the moral vacuum of modern America, popular culture’s shallow and phony values sweep in to fill the void of the adolescent self.

To get the full benefit of the multivalent themes and insights that Oates’ rich story contains, one pretty much has to bite the bullet and read it him- or herself. The beauty of the story is, after all, largely in its details and in the various ways in which it can be read, including, to my way of thinking, at any rate, both realistically and allegorically. Indeed, for horror fans, as soon as Friend and his friend, Ellie, arrive at Connie’s house, their bizarre behavior and grotesque dialogue leaves no doubt that, however real the actual crime upon which Oates bases her story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” goes so beyond the world of the everyday (without, paradoxically, ever leaving it) that there is no alternative but to read it both ways simultaneously, as realistic narrative and allegorical fantasy.

By the way, you can read about Charles Schmid’s crimes at TruTV’s Crime Library (“Charles Schmid: The Pied Piper”), and an online text of Oates’ story is available at Celestial Timepiece. I heartily recommend both. For film fans, there’s also Smooth Talk (1985), directed by Joyce Chopra and starring Laura Dern as Connie and Treat Williams as Arnold Friend. The set of large black-and-white photographs that appeared in Life magazine following Schmidt's arrest put a personal face on the true-life persons (except for Alleen herself) who were associated as friends, acquaintances, and victims of Schmid and of the law enforcement and judicial system representatives who finally brought him to justice. The images can be viewed at the LIFE photo archive hosted by Google. Just type in “Charles Schmid” (without quotation marks) to access the photographs.

Something's Wrong!

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Something’s wrong with. . . . Well, just about everything. We fear that something is not quite right. That something is wide of the mark. That something is improper. Something’s wrong with the baby! That could be the tagline for Rosemary’s Baby.

 

Something’s wrong with the dog! That could be the tagline for Cujo.

 

Something’s wrong with the house! That could be the tagline for The Amityville Horror.

 

Something could go wrong with virtually anything--or anyone. Including me. . . . or you.

 

There’s something wrong with my nurse! Couldn’t that be the tagline for Misery?

 

There’s something wrong with my husband! That could be the tagline for The Shining.

 

What could go wrong? Again, almost anything. The baby could be the spawn of Satan, a true devil’s child. The dog could have rabies. The house could be haunted. The nurse and, for that matter, one’s husband could be psychotic and violent, even murderous.

 

Whatever could go wrong might go wrong. Horror stories are often about things (and people) that go wrong. They suffer a mechanical, an electrical, or a nervous breakdown. They go awry or insane. They fly off the handle, hit the roof, lose it, flip their lids, lose their heads.

 

The things that go wrong or, sometimes, the things that make other things go wrong, are the monsters or their human equivalents, most of which are symbolic of other, actual dangers: demons (weaknesses and appetites), ghosts (past traumas or guilt or fears that both haunt and drive the emotions of the haunted), giants (seemingly insurmountable, irresistible, or invincible situations), ogres (natural catastrophes or technological terrors), vampires (depression or sexual lust or perversions), werewolves (the animal within), witches (women in league with forces beyond human understanding), and zombies (the brain damaged, the psychotic, and the mesmerized).

 

Look up synonyms for some of these terms, and their real-world equivalents will appear. “Haunted,” for example, suggests haunted “troubled,” “preoccupied,” “worried,” “disturbed,” “anxious,” or “obsessed.”

  

Horror stories are also about what happens after things (and people) go wrong. Such fiction is about survival and recovery. Novels and short stories in this genre are about restoration and rebirth. In seeing what protagonists and other characters do in the face of extreme danger, menaced by natural, paranormal, or supernatural forces as irresistible and as powerful as they are relentless, we readers can learn how to survive and recover. We can learn how to be restored and how to be reborn. We can also learn the nature of the monster, whether it takes the form of a charismatic man or a beautiful woman, a seemingly innocent child with a shy smile, or a leader who promises things for which we’ve longed all our lives or have clutched to our breasts only in our dreams, and we can avoid the menace or neutralize or kill it.

 

Of course, we can always say that there is nothing wrong, that everything is all right, that there’s no cause for alarm. Life gives us that choice; horror fiction often doesn’t.

Motivation as Explanation

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

In earlier posts, we have considered the nature of evil as various horror writers have defined it. Some have seen evil as sinful; others as indifference on a cosmic, worldly, or local level; and still others as destructive of one’s local community.

These considerations of evil can be considered as being metaphysical. They deal with the very nature, or character, of evil. They delve into the heart and the soul, as it were, of wickedness, seeking to penetrate the depths of the mystery of iniquity.

More than many genres, horror cries out--one might say, given the nature of the genre, screams--for an explanation of evil on such a level. Moreover, horror fiction, to work at all, must also offer an explanation for the particular evil--the specific monster or other adversary--that threatens the protagonist of a particular tale. The very mechanics of the horror story demand this of its authors, and those who fail to supply such an explanation or whose explanation is not all that explanatory or plausible within the context of the story in which it is offered tend to perturb their readers.

Elsewhere, we laid bare the bones of the horror story’s skeleton, or formula:

1. A series of bizarre incidents occurs.
2. The protagonist discovers the cause of these incidents.
3. The protagonist uses his or her newfound knowledge to put an end to these incidents.

The second stage of the narrative is our topic in this post, for the cause of the bizarre incidents in a particular story is the antagonist’s motivation, and this motivation is the explanation, on the immediate and narrative, if not the metaphysical and universal, level, for the evil that occurs, although, often, the former is a consequence or, at least, a parallel, of the latter. An example of these two levels? In Christianity, the nature of evil is pride (“pride goeth before a fall,” as Satan learns), whereas Satan’s individual and personal motive in corrupting humanity is his blasphemous attempt “to be like the most high God”:

How art thou fallen, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit (Isaiah 14: 12-15).

Likewise, the apostle Peter, although he protests that he would never betray Jesus, even if his loyalty to the Messiah should cost him his own life, betrays Jesus, an act which stems from the greater love that he had for himself than that which he had for God (a sort of pride), but is, more immediately, directed at the saving of his own life, in the here and now.

This chart shows some of the explanations that are provided for the series of bizarre incidents that unfold in several well-known horror stories; again, as the motives of specific antagonists within particular narratives, they are causes in the immediate sense and within the contexts of the stories themselves, not in a universal and cosmic sense, as definitions of the very nature of evil itself:

These example could be multiplied ad infinitum, but the point is that, in the horror story that accommodates itself to the formula we identified, the antagonist’s motive is the explanation for the horror--the series of bizarre incidents that unfold in the first part of the tale, whatever the ultimate, metaphysical nature of evil itself may be.

Therefore, the horror writer’s first task is to determine what the antagonist’s motive shall be, to identify, in other words, what the antagonist wants and hopes to accomplish. Having done so, the author withholds this explanation for the bizarre incidents that occur in the story until the middle of the tale, wherein, discerning or learning the antagonist’s motivation (i. e., the cause of the evil events that are taking place), the protagonist is equipped to put an end to these incidents (and, possibly, the monster that is causing them). It’s extremely doubtful that the protagonist will ever but an end to the nature of evil, to sin, or pride, or indifference, or threats to the local community, or whatever this nature may be.

Despite the chaos, there must be order. Despite the madness, there must be a method. Despite the bizarre series of incidents, there must be a motive to the monster’s behavior which causes these incidents. Writers who do not provide a plausible motive for the bizarre series of incidents that result from their antagonists’ actions do not fare well with readers and critics, and otherwise good, or even superior, novels suffer as a result of such failures as well. Although Stephen King’s motives usually suffice to make his villains’ actions believable, he drops the ball in a big way with It, and Bentley Little, despite having written nearly a dozen novels and many short stories, has yet to pick up the ball or, perhaps, even to notice that it exists. The effect, upon It, is to all but ruin a potential masterpiece of the genre. The effect, upon Little’s reputation, of not yet his career, is sustained disappointment and, most likely, eventual oblivion.

Some motives that horror writers have used to explain the bizarre incidents that unfold in the first parts of their stories include:

• Demonic possession in an attempt to bring about a person’s damnation
• An alien’s mission (for example, conquest or mating with a man or a woman)
• Vengeance upon a wrongdoer
• Eruptions of a past or future events into the present
• Pollution
• Humans’ encroachment upon a monster’s habitat
• An effort to steal or control dwindling food or other resources
• Behavioral control or modification
• Recruitment or testing
• Eugenics
• Efforts to survive a plague or the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust
• Genocide
• Punishment, individual or wholesale
• Colonization
• Commerce
• War

Plot, Character, Setting and Theme as Narrative Starting Points

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

The four primary elements of fiction are plot, character, setting, and theme. Associated with most of these is a cluster of related components: plot is divisible into exposition, inciting moment, rising action, turning point, falling action, moment of final suspense, and (depending upon whether the narrative is a comedy or a tragedy) resolution or catastrophe.

Of course, all plots are also derived from, and developed upon, conflict. Likewise, setting is not merely a matter of a specific time and place, but it also entails the particular cultural milieu that exists in this particular time and place. Victorian London, for example, is quite different than nineteenth-century Tombstone, Arizona.

Similarly, character involves motivation, various personality traits, and, usually, interrelationships among several fictional persons. Only theme is simple, rather than complex, having no subordinate constituents.

Since any of these four elements is a potential starting point for a story, a writer may generate an idea for a story by considering plot, character, setting, or theme. Some writers, among them both C. S. Lewis and Stephen King, have been inspired by mental images of characters in specific situations or settings.

C. S. Lewis specified the image of a fawn, or satyr, carrying an armload of parcels, as the mental picture that launched The Chronicles of Narnia, and Storm of the Century, King says, began with his imagining a strange man incarcerated in a jail cell.

The placement of a character in a particular situation or setting is not a story, of course, but it is (possibly) the beginning of a story that could start by considering an interesting character. It is the starting point from which a series of questions can begin to be asked. The choice of a protagonist or an antagonist can also suggest, or even determine, the story’s counterpart as well. Once William Peter Blatty decided upon a demon—maybe Satan himself—as his story’s antagonist, an exorcist became the most logical choice of a protagonist. (Although The Exorcist is said to be based upon a true story, Blatty, as an author of fiction was free to select a character other than a priest as his protagonist, had he wished to do so; fact does not determine fiction, even when the latter is based upon the former.)

Dean Koontz says he begins many of his stories by involving a character in a bizarre situation that compels him or her to react to the incidents that ensue therefrom.

Many of Jesus’ parables begin as answers to his disciples’ questions concerning the meaning of the law or of right conduct in regard to particular situations. They are stories told, in other words, to impart wisdom. Their purpose is not primarily to entertain, but to instruct. Therefore, they originate as a means for expressing, in concrete terms, abstract ideas or values. They are theme-driven.

The Parable of the Prodigal Son illustrates the meaning of forgiveness. The Parable of the Good Samaritan shows the meaning of loving one’s neighbor. The Parable of the Mustard Seed shows the meaning of faith.

Horror stories, as cautionary tales, also often drive home a theme. Beowulf teaches the destructive and deadly effects of intertribal vengeance. The Shining shows the terrible consequences of self-absorption, self-indulgence, and child and spousal abuse. Cujo is not only about a rabid dog, but also about the devastating effects of adultery upon one’s marriage and family.

Sometimes, a setting will suggest a story. It is no accident that many horror stories take place in isolated environments, total institutions, or confining spaces. What other monster but the strange troglodytes could have inhabited the cavern into which, as if into Satan’s maw, the female spelunkers enter in The Descent? What better foe could beachgoers encounter in the finny deep than the gargantuan white shark with which Peter Benchley confronts his readers in Jaws? Likewise, the rain forest in which Special Forces soldiers first encounter the camouflaged extraterrestrial in Predator fairly cries out for such a monster as its antagonist.

Edgar Allan Poe’s essay, "The Philosophy of Composition," is the quintessential document, perhaps, alongside Aristotle’s Poetics, for the point of view that it is the plot that matters more than other elements (a point not always conceded by other authorities).

Poe argued that a writer should commence not at the beginning of his or her story but, on the contrary, with its end, working backward in determining the sequence of actions and other details that will best lead, inevitably, toward the narrative’s climactic finale, using his own narrative poem The Raven as an example of the process.

Many writers share Aristotle’s and Poe’s respect for plotting, so much so that they find themselves at a loss to put pen to paper (or, more commonly, finger to keyboard) until they have plotted the whole tale, from “A” to “Z.” (Others, such as Mark Twain, write the same way that the Who’s “Pinball Wizard” plays his game, blindly, as it were, purely “by inspiration.”)

The fact that a writer can generate a story from any of the four primary elements of fiction quadruples his or her opportunities for inspiration. It does more than this, however: it also provides the writer with a way of considering, and deciding, which element he or she wants to emphasize.

The author must consider whether the story highlights an individual’s actions in the face of fate (plot); personal limitations, abilities, and will (character); the effects of time, place, and culture on the understanding and development of character and the limitations imposed upon one by his or her environment (setting); or the lesson that the main character learns as a result of his or her experience, as recounted in the story (theme).

The choice that the writer makes at this initial point will affect the story as a whole and how the reader understands the tale. In this sense, four possible stories confront the writer, and he or she must choose which of the four to tell.

For horror story writers, Poe suggests a solution to this dilemma: pick the element that will best sustain and heighten fear and trembling. After all, that’s what horror is all about.